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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Corrick

When we were children, Harristan and I would climb out of the tunnel and leave our royal lives behind like shedding a skin. He might have been slower to run and climb, but he was always better with the people. Merchants would sometimes see a boy with too many coins for his own good and they’d try to con him out of them, but my brother could never be tricked or swindled. He used to say that being coddled and sheltered and wrapped up in blankets gave him a lot of time to study people. It’s truly a miracle I was able to keep Weston Lark a secret from him for so long.

No. It wasn’t a miracle. It was trust. He trusts me.

He trusted me.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to erase the memory of the look on his face when he asked me if I was involved with the smugglers. It’s etched as deeply as the moment I heard a boot scrape against rock in the Hold and I hoped he would appear through the haze of smoke.

Tessalooks at me, and I can feel the weight of her gaze. Always before, it was easy to forget everything that awaited me in the palace and lose myself to the persona of Weston Lark.

Today, it’s not. Tessa knows too much, and everything is at stake.

I suppose it always was, for her.

“If we discover who’s behind the attacks,” she says slowly, “what will you do to them?”

“It depends.”

She gives me a look, and I lift one shoulder in a shrug. “It does.” I glance down and meet her eyes. “I can’t allow them to continue. You know that.”

“I do. I know.” But she swallows, and I realize this bothers her.

“Even if we stop the attacks, it won’t cure the fever,” I say. “But right now, Allisander has the right—and the motive—to restrict access to the Moonflower. I can’t do anything if he locks himself up in his sector. If I can prove to him that his supply runs are safe and that I’m not a rebel myself, I can work with Harristan to figure out a more equitable way to distribute the elixir, especially if you can prove that we can do more with less.”

“That’s a lot of ifs again.” She draws a long breath that shudders a little. “And it might not stop a revolution.”

“Tessa.” I look down at her and think of Quint sharing his worries in my quarters. If she runs, it would be nearly impossible to explain away, but I won’t force her to do this against her will. “I have a pouch of coins. If you want out—”

“No.” She shakes her head a little. “I want to do the right thing.”

“Hmm.” I look straight ahead. “The problem is that we all have different ideas of what’s right.” I sigh. “Including my brother. To say nothing of Allisander.”

“Sometimes things are just right,” she says forcefully. “It’s not fair that people are dying when we can help them. It’s not fair that Allisander can control so much—just because he has land and money. It’s not fair that you’re expected to—”

“Allisander is motivated by silver, so he’d likely consider it very fair—”

“I’m not talking about Consul Sallister. I’m talking about the king.”

Those words drop like a rock, and I’m not sure what to say. “It’s not a matter of expectation, Tessa.” My voice turns rough against my will. “It’s a matter of need.”

“When we were in the carriage, you told me you couldn’t leave him behind.” She pauses. “Do you think your brother is weak?”

I think of the way Harristan reads every plea, how the deaths of our people seem to weigh on him. How he rarely wants the details of what I do to maintain the illusion of control.

I think of how he dove to cover me when our parents were slaughtered.

Or how, afterward, he stepped into his role as king.

“I would never call him weak,” I say.

She’s quiet for a while, and then she says very gently, “Do you think, if you were no longer King’s Justice, that your brother would be able to maintain control?”

I’m not sure how to answer that either.

I suppose that’s answer enough.